Slip
by potential-flatmate
Summary: One word.. just one word to destroy everything. Post-Fall.
1. Chapter 1

one word...  
>John was sitting half-naked on a windowsill with his back to the glass. Chill of the autumn rain should've made him cold through the small protection of the glass, but John was so numb that he barely felt it. All the muscles in his body were stiff, unmovable, he was a solid thing with a sucking hollowness in the deepest part of him.<br>one word...  
>could it be ths wrong... how, HOW did he manage to destroy everything he has reached in three years since, with just one word. This word changed his life once and now it did it again.<br>It's three years today. Three years sharp since the moment he saw a dark silouette of his best friend against the cloudy london sky at the top of the Bart's roof.  
>No words can describe what happened to his scarred worn-out heart at the moment the silouette descended the rooftop and he heard that sickening sound of... of... falling.<br>John sinks even further into the window, desiring to blend into the cold night and just disappear, to end the suffering, one of the worst part of which he had just descended upon himself with this word.  
>The day started as usually, waking up in his bed, with Mary's sleeping form on the opposite side of it. He still wakes up with a start, but two years ago that would be from nightmares and now from the lack of them. John stumbled quietly out of the bed trying not to wake Mary - she's not in a very good mood from all of the hormonal pills she takes to get pregnant. And god John doesn't have any guts to tell her that he is so damn happy that the pills don't work.<br>"We're not getting younger, John" she says, sad wrinkles framing her thin pink lips - "don't you want something to stay in ths world after you'd leave". Maybe if he had heard those words right after he returned from Afghanistan, he would cradle his wife in his arms and be head over hills in love with her, but not now.  
>Breakfast, tube, job - everything is ordinary, except for the dark thought, which John is desparetly trying to lay back further in his mind, but there it is. Today is three years annyversairy, three years since he started living just a half of his life, being on his own in this cruel world even despite rare naggings from Lestrade and marriage. Marriage... the more John thinks of it, the more he feels that marrying sweet understanding Mary Morstan, whom he had met at Tesco's just above a year ago, was a mistake. Even worse. He uses the poor woman to fill the emptiness burning his insides, but all of the efforts are futile. And now she wants a baby...<br>John didn't know when the blur of his practice's walls had become the green grass of the cemetery and how had the lonely white flower appeared in his arms. He was just standing there, in front of the black gravestone, staring at it, not muttering a word. He had let himself talk here just once and wouldn't do it again. There are two bouquiets on the ground already. John o knows that those are from Lestrade and . John put his own lonely flower down and noticed a small dimple in the solid just beside his own feet. Mycroft's umbrella. So he was the last one to come visit today. It somehow ashamed him. John thought that maybe he should have spent the whole day here, sitting on the grass and staring onth the letters on the black stone and maybe talking to the silence. But he didn't. He's too broken to do it. When John straightened once more he thought that he had caught something in an edge of his vision, a shadow of a long figure. "Not this again". Almost every time he came here he could see it, especially on annyversairies, but today was different. The air brought John a small trace of familiar cologne. His insides clenched, John bent, clutching his cane and breathed, just breathed till the smell disappeared and his blurring vision cleared. He's just an old army doctor with a broken heart and a broken mind playing tricks with him.  
>Later, John had stumbled into an all-familiar pub where Lestrade was waiting for him, but not with a pint and new tales this time, instead with a couple of strong shots and stories of old good days, even those "before John". Lestrade is almost all grey now, tired and a bit broken just like himself. So that night they were drinking and remembering the time when they lived, truely lived.<br>His new simple flat was dark and quiet when John came back, half-drunk, buzzling with old memories and whiskey. And it was so easy to slide under the covers and touch the warm body undernath, to start ripping off each others clothes, kiss and moan. But when he eased into the eager body, clutching the skin so hard it will bruise, here it was, the breathy word,that destroyed everything  
>"Sherlock"<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock felt cold. For three indescribably long years cold was his most constant companion. Being a self-diagnosed sociopath didn't help in luring the feeling of emptiness and hollowness he felt for this time. But now was the new beginning. First sparks of warm hope were blooming somewhere in the detective's gut at the sight of the familiar black door just a few feet away, but first… Sherlock lifted his gaze from the three years-worn numbers to the window. First - John

Two barely lit silhouettes were sitting on the windowsill on the second floor of a scraped building in a cheap district. A man and a woman both enclosed in each other, woman quietly talking. The only consulting detective in the world didn't need all his brainpower to recognize his best friend and his new spouse Mary. John's sunken shoulders and Mary's body being turned towards him were clearly showing the detective that the talk was one-sided, and the previous knowledge of his friend was screaming that John was feeling guilty.

The curiosity and a slight worry for John made Sherlock reach into his coat pocket and pick his phone. Hacking into Mycroft's bugs (Sherlock was a 100% sure that his brother would keep an eye on the doctor and was right) was quite easy and then, turning the sound on he engaged himself in the conversation he was not supposed to hear.

John, Please talk to me – slight welsh accent, must be from the coast – I know how much this means to you and I'm not angry.

Why? – disbelief

Because… because… - nervous, searching for words, - I know this… this life is not what you really want…

Mary…

No, let me finish. – _long intake of breath_ – when we first met you were so.. broken and sad, but you tried to forget all that was before, you tried for both of us. But.. but.. John – _she leaned into him_ – I knew you don't want the life I can offer you – _her voice was getting quieter and sadder_ – And what happened tonight is just the final proof of that. No.. no.. let me. I.. I don't blame you. I just want you to choose.

I choose you.

Sure?

How can I not be after… after this.

John – _they kissed_ – then I want you to promise me something.

Anything.

You will go to Ella tomorrow and.. and.. will you try to leave him behind?

Long silence

I will.

Sherlock felt the dread filling him.

He stumbled backwards almost tripping over his own feet. Leave him behind. That decision his.. his John had just made, left him so cold again. Sherlock was too late. He remembered the time when over the remains of the homeless network he discovered that John got married. He was so sure that at the first sight of him the woman would be abandoned and his doctor will come back to 221b. He was a fool.

Sherlock turned his back to the window where silhouettes of his friend and his wife embraced each other tightly and continued a quiet now meaningless talk and then quietly went to bed.

Sherlock was all alone again, after three years of hunting and running and thinking of only one thing – coming home to John. What should he do now? Go upstairs, loudly announce that he had heard everything and then make John choose.

No. He's not that cruel.

Sherlock sighed. It started to rain.

The decision was simple. He will go to Ella's office, install there a cam and just sit and watch John leaving him.

And then. Then there would not be Sherlock Holmes anymore, because there would not be John Watson waiting for him.


End file.
